


Santa Clarita: Going Home

by duointherain



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-17 19:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11858241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duointherain/pseuds/duointherain
Summary: This is the most forward of the Santa Clarita stories. So.. after the war, the boys were put on trial for crimes against humanity and then sentenced to school, pretty much. Duo lived like 600 years, lived through great technological advances, and then Heero rescued him from the AI simulation he was in. Only Duo was now 600+ years old and Heero was 19.  Now Duo has an idea on how to make things right...





	1. Chapter 1

Santa Clarita: Going Home  
By Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

Note: My god, it feels good to write that disclaimer. I’ve been doing original and it’s so much more stressful. 

Note about the story: This story is set after Heero rescues Duo from the computer and other Heero follows Duo out into the ‘real’ world to get him back. So the Duo at the start of this story is over 600 years old and Heero was 19, I believe. Inconsistencies are entirely my fault and in the end I’m writing this for my own wellbeing and the hope that someone else will also enjoy it 

 

Duo held the name plate with both hands, head tilted, lip swelling, one eye black. The placard had his prisoner number and then New York City Police Station 8732. 

The office setting up the photo sneered. “You don’t seem much like a god now, do you ‘Dr.’ Maxwell?”

Duo’s lip twitched, the unswollen side attempting to lift in a smile. He blew at a bit of long bang laying over his eye, lifting it just a bit. 

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe those pussies were afraid to arrest you.” 

Then she looked into the camera. Through the camera her prisoner’s face was a skull, dark sockets and empty nose. The tangled brown braid a matted brown priest cowel. Boney fingers held the placard and as she tried to pull back, they held her head, holding her to the camera as those cold bones slipped through her hair to caress her scalp. Her scream muffled around folds of musty thick brown cloth that had pushed into her mouth. 

Her hands grabbed at the air beside the camera, trying to get hold of anything more solid than the black empty eye staring at her through the camera lens. Death, sweet and sickly soaked into her and her own vomit filled her throat, plugged by the dark fabric. 

Cool breeze brushed her ear and she heard, as if nature had spoken to her directly, “Do not make fun of the God of Death. Do not use pussies as a derogatory. You can call people garbanzo beans. Beans don’t have feelings, well, not ones that matter.”

She hit the floor with a twack, her skull on the cheap ass concrete floor. 

Another officer rushed in, pistol drawn. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Ima just standin here holdin this here card thingy,” Duo said, shaking the little card a bit. “I ain’t moved, no sir, no how.” 

“Maggie,” the man said, going to one knee, his pistol back in its holster. “Maggie are you alright?”

“Death!” she started sobbing, hands holding onto his arms. “He’s the God of Death!” 

“Now now,” Chuck said, uncomfortable and giving Duo another accusing look. 

Duo had his eyes wide, as angelic as he possibly could look after a bar brawl and bank robbery. “I bet she had a panic attack. You all got good insurance? You all shouldn’t work folk so hard!”

She pointed her shaking finger at Duo and started to scream.

“I think she needs a sedative. I’m a doctor, you know.” 

“Shuddap,” Chuck snapped. He stood up, looked at the footage in the camera, which showed a second of Duo standing there like nothing happened and that was it. “God, Maggie, there ain’t nothing here. He ain’t moved at all or did nothing.”

“No, he was Death itself. Don’t be a fucking garbanzo bean!” 

Duo’s lips twisted, which stung a bit due to the swelling. “She might need to see someone.. You know?”

“Shaddup you! Merle! Come finish this mugshot!”

Another man came in. He stared, curling his lower lip down with his thumb for a moment. “What da fuck?”

“Maggie fainted. Just do the mugshot and process this guy.” 

“Oh shit, Duo Maxwell! Hey, he’s a doctor. Maybe he can help.”

“He’s a fucking prisoner, Merle,” Chuck snapped. 

“He’s Death,” Maggie wailed, swaying as Chuck got her to her feet. “I’m gonna puke!”

“Maybe it’s the flu,” Duo offered helpfully. 

“Please turn to your left, Dr. Maxwell,” Merle asked.   
“Sure thing,” Duo said, being very cooperative. “You play powerball?”

“Sometime,” Merle said, “Don’t you worry. I’m sure you’ll post bond right away. What they say you did?”

“Well, there was a brawl, then I robbed a bank.”

“You don’t gotta incriminate yoself,” Merle said, giving Duo the eye. 

“It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay. I got clarity now. You should play Powerball today. Pick yer birthday and yer wedding anniversary.” Duo stepped down from the platform and move in the direction that Merle pointed. 

“How you know I was married,” Merle asked. 

Duo shrugged. “Just a guess.” 

A few minutes later Duo was in the holding cell with Heero, who still wasn’t talking to him. 

They sat on the same bench. Duo grinned hopefully, the way he remembered grinning when he was fifteen/sixteen.

Heero’s blue eyes narrowed, lips puckering up. “You’re not my Duo.”

“Never said I was,” Duo said, lips tight and words distorted by his swollen lips. “But I used to be him and I still love you.”

Heero scooted just a little farther away. “My Duo can’t walk on water.”

“I just didn’t want to get wet!”

“You’re only barely human.” 

“Human’s over rated. But I have have an idea!” Duo stood up, stretched, made a face and got rid of all the bruising and swelling. He turned back to Heero, his grin his own, cocky and eyes dark purple and sparkling. “Come home with me, Heero. My Heero and family, they’ve built a ship. The plan is to go... just go. Heero and Martha think we can make Alpha Centauri, just leave this solar system and go. We’ll find a new planet, start over.”

Heero’s face tightened and Duo’s heart wanted to break. For there be tears gathering in Heero’s eyes might as well be sobs. “But he’s gone. I didn’t find you fast enough and I’ll never catch. I’ll never be able to look into your eyes as my equal again. I don’t care where we go what we do. You have a Heero. Can you, please, just give me a good dream and let me die here?”

“Oh Baby,” Duo said, dropping to his knees, hands reaching for Heero’s hands. “I have better idea. I was afraid to let young me out because I know how dangerous he fucking was, but my Heero built a safe place. Martha can pull out your Duo and you can be together. I want him to go to Wyoming, but there’s no need for an arrest. You and he will be safe and can grow up together.”

“Can.. can you pull young me out of me, so I don’t have to live these years without you?” 

Duo brushed a hand over Heero’s short military hair. “I love you as you are, but yes, if that’s what you want, Martha can do that.”

“My Duo and I can grow up together?”

“Yeah.” 

“And when we’re grown up, we’ll be on our way to Alpha Centauri or some other planet? Will you still be part of my life?”

“I can and will be. So come with me?”

Heero nodded and reached for Duo’s hand, holding it tightly. “It was fun robbing the bank.”

“I always wanted to do that!” Duo stood up and pulled Heero with him, “Come meet our family!”

“Okay,” Heero said, a single tear slipping free. “Will we be dying to get to this digital world?”

Duo backed up, both hands out, pulling Heero with him into a black nothingness. “Fuck no. Dying sucks.”

“What about Relena? What about this world?”

“What about’em Heero? You don’t want to be here without your Duo and he’s too fucking dangerous to let into this world.”

Heero nodded and stepped into the blackness.


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heero may be in over his head.

Santa Clarita: Going Home 2/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

 

Instinct caught his breath before the darkness swallowed him. For the tiniest moment, the only frame of reference the universe had was Duo’s hand holding his, but it wasn’t this new god like Duo, it was his Duo, on their last morning in Brazil. Pressed closed together on the mat they called a bed, Duo’s hand had held to his. In that moment, he remembered feeling uncomfortable, as if Duo’s vulnerability was too much, his raw emotion was unfair to share, but in that moment of blackness between worlds, Heero reached into that memory and held Duo’s hand tighter. In his mind, he said what he hadn’t been able to say that morning. “We’ll be alright. I’ll always be with you.” The memory changed then.

Duo held a little looser, but more connected. “You’re alright, Heero Yuy.”

But he knew how that day came out. That was the day he lost his Duo.

Bright light hit him in the face, warm and yellow and the air smelled like barbecue and dog. Then the paws hit him on the chest and only Duo holding his hand prevented the instinctive punch. “No! That’s Bailey. Mox! Get yer fuckin dog!”

Then the dog was on Duo and Duo went over onto the ground under a mountain of summer hay colored fluff as the thing licked Duo in the face and Duo tried to push him back. “Mox!”

Mox clapped and golden sparkles made a cloud around her hand. The great big dog sat down on Duo, a little ball of golden glitter appearing over its head and then in a male British accent it said, “DUO DUO DUO!”

“Yes, I understand,” the woman said, and was quite possibly one of the most beautiful women Heero had ever seen, with perfect curves, chocolate skin, a halo of hair and long golden earrings, everything about her presentation moved and shimmered together, creating an aura of beauty, even as she shook her finger scoldingly at the big dog. “Yes, I understand that you missed him, however, you’re making a bother and you made Mr. Yuy uncomfortable. Apologize.”

This moutain of a dog, some kind of cross between a dust mop and a large sized Saint Bernard, got up, turned around slowly like the Snuffleupagus, and said, though now Heero realized it was the golden ball above its head making the sound. “Sorry, sorry, Mr. Yuy. Sorry. Bad Bailey.” 

Heero felt like there were little tiny black holes in his jaw, trying real hard to drop his mouth open. “It’s okay. I understand,” he said and then held out his hand to shake, which Bailey accepted, though the paw was nearly bigger than Heero’s hand. 

“See!” Bailey said, looking at his dog mom, “Bailey good?”

“That’s a good Bailey. Now come sit down here with me.” At some point she’d moved close enough to also offer her hand. “Hello! We’re all so pleased to meet you. I’m Mox.”

There should be a word for dread mixed with awe and feeling infinitely small. He held out his hand and they shook. Her hand felt as real as any hand he’d ever touched, but more so in some way, like the touch of her skin to his, which was just arm and firm, but more, in that it somehow communicated how happy she was that he was there and how much she cared for Duo and how excited she was for the future. The dread flowered completely as he looked at her eyes. One was the dark brown one would expect in a person of her complexion, but the other was a swirl of color like a galaxy. 

His god like Duo, who could literally walk on water, wasn’t god like here, but just clutzy normal old Duo. The dust mop of a dog might be more able to navigate this world than he was. Just as Duo was being awkward about being embraced by a pair of female clones, movement to his left caught his eye and there were two Wufei’s. Both of them maybe ten years old, identical, holding hands, heads tilting slowly as they looked at him, in unison.

Heero’s hair stood on end. The cops had taken his pistols. What good are pistols against gods anyway though. 

Then the Wufei’s started laughing and high-fiving each other. 

Heero’s jaw shifted to the side and he was a hair away from wanting to punch them. They weren’t fucking children. There were not fucking human children in this fucking place.

The Wufei on the right pointed to him, made a face and snickered, “I can’t wait to show you the look on your face! Oh my god, that was precious!” 

“Are you Chang Wufei,” Heero asked. 

“Well,” the right one said, only to have the left one continue, “we have a core basis of Chang Wufei, but in the advent we decided to add some of Duo and a little bit of Mox, and a little bit of Martha, but we still want the name Wufei, as it is most fitting.”

“I heard that, you little shits,” one of the females fawning over Duo said. 

Heero heard her and understood whatever the society here, she was at the top of it.   
“So, Heero,” Duo said, bringing them closer. He was a little bit taller than they were, but not by much. They had dirty blonde hair, cut asymmetrically so it was longer on the outside as they stood next to Duo. While Mox had been startingly beautiful, these two were plain. Not homely, just more common than would be statistically possible, as if it would be impossible to memorize their faces, or pick them up with facial recognition software, for that matter. “These are two of my moms. This is Martha. Always do what she says. She’s always got a reason. This is M2. Sometimes she’s actually also Martha, so always do what she says too. Mary is around here somewhere, right?” he asked, looking from one to the other.

“Mary has not advented yet, but the event is not completely closed.”

“That’s wrong,” Duo said firmly. “Someone go get her.”

“That’s not how it works,” a football linebacker sized guy said, holding his hand out to Heero. “Hi! I’m Alan.”

Heero took his hand, feeling small as the big black hand closed around his with kindness and a sense noninvasive humanity. 

“We don’t force the advent, Duo. If she doesn’t do it herself, she doesn’t.”

“The results are unacceptable,” Martha said, answering Duo’s question before it was even out of his mouth. 

“But Mary,” Duo said, face twitching as if he were going to start crying.

That’s when Heero’s world both gelled and broke apart. He, but not himself, some other him with longer hair and a bird feather woven in with a brown leather thong stepped up behind Duo and Duo melted into him as they were one person in a way that Heero know he’d never experienced with any Duo ever. The edges of their physical being, which had seemed so real when he’d touched the other people, between Heero and Duo blurred, with Heero’s hand overlapping Duo’s space just a little. 

“I want my Duo. I want him now,” Heero said, losing control of himself. 

“And you shall have him,” another man, who had come into being in the park where they stood. 

Heero only now realized they were in an empty park with a blue sky, trees and grass, but it was just them. He turned slowly around and found a city, a city he didn’t know, but typical tall buildings, outline things, the normal cityscape, but there was no sound to it, no cars, no planes, no underlying rumble of all the machinery of human life. “Where are we?”

The new man, blond curls with green eyes and the same kind of beauty that Mox had had, only masculine and much more sexual, threatening in some underspoken way. “This is Camelot. It’s empty now, but it’ll be better populated in time.”

“You built a city, but don’t have any people?” Heero turned back to look at these ‘people’ he was standing with. “Where are you going to get people? Are you going to take colonists from Earth?”

“No,” Alan said, reaching out for the blond man’s hand. They had that same overlapping space that Duo and the other Heero had. “We’re a new species, Heero.”

“So you’ll make babies?”

“Lives choose to advent,” Martha said, “We don’t make them. We don’t know how it works yet, but there will be people. The city will shift and change to accommodate them.”

“I don’t belong here,” Heero said, backing away from them.

“You do belong,” Alan said, “You have passed advent. You are us.”

Heero’s head went light. This wasn’t like any battle he’d ever fought. He didn’t know the rules. 

“Heero! Fuckin chill,” Duo said. “Look, you wanted to be here, or you wouldn’t be here. It’s okay. You can connect to younger me as soon as we figure out how to best help him.”

“Where is he? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” Martha said, “At least for a traumatized 13 year old with chronic nutritional deficiencies.”

“We were fifteen,” Heero said firmly. 

“That argument won’t work,” Duo said with a sigh. “Apparently, I was 13 when we were in Brazil.”

Heero shrugged, decided that bit of information made other things make sense.

“What? You can’t accept that like it makes sense,” Duo whined. “I was fifteen.”

The Wufei’s snickered. 

“Shaddup you!”

“He is in a holding pattern,” Martha explained. “We must decide on a course of action. He is volatile and powerful.”

“There is only one course of action,” Heero said, challenging Martha’s long held dominance. “I will go to him and explain. Then he and I will decide if we wish to remain here or if we want to go back to Earth.” 

“He can’t go back to Earth,” Duo said firmly. “He’s dangerous and more powerful than you know.”

“Well, make him human!” 

“He is human, Heero! We could make him a body and let the two of you go. He’s more dangerous than you understand. It would be wrong of him to unleash him on Earth. Aside from vengeance, there were other reasons those fuckers took me to be the core of their new AI. I couldn’t manage the Zero system, but this was a different thing. Trust me, you don’t want young me running around on Earth.”

“What difference does it make to you, you won’t be here! It seems to me that you were used on every level. Things would have been different if we had just continued on in Rio. I trust him with my life and with Earth.”

“Fine,” Martha held up her hand. “Fine! We do not coerce. I will put you in his thread. You do what you do. You have three days, thread time, to decide if you want to go with us, or stay on Earth. We will not force you, either way.” 

The rest of them accepted her word. 

Heero gave a curt nod, and then he was laying in bed with Duo, Duo’s hand reaching for his. “Tell me I’m okay, Heero? Please? I’m scared. I had a bad dream.” 

Heero snuggled closer, taking Duo’s hand, kissing the back of his neck. “I’m here with you. I believe in you. We’ll make everything okay.”


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heero thinks he's going to find a young Duo, that he'll be responsible for him, that he's going to do everything he can to take care of him. Things never go to plan.

Santa Clarita: Going Home 3/?

By Max

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing.

 

Heero shifted up a little onto his elbow so he could see Duo more clearly. Laying there next to him, dark chocolate honey hair like paint strokes around a perfect angelic face, see him him was exactly like seeing him in his memory, but different, new, breathing. Reverently, Heero touched the edge of Duo’s eyelashes, then long sun lightened strands of hair. So much silkier than his own and in that moment, the difference in their hair, one silk, one baby bamboo, made it seem like their was an ocean between them to Heero.

Duo’s eyes opened, shifting to give Heero the eye. 

Unlike his usual experience, this time Duo glaring at him only filled Heero with joy. Lovingly he caressed Duo’s cheek, so smooth, and then things began to fall into place. “Let’s just stay like this for another moment, please?”

“M’kay,” Duo said, snuggling back against him, an arm going around Heero’s arm, pulling it to his chest. “Then you gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

Heero grunted against Duo’s shoulder. It was only a few inches of growth, but he was taller than Duo now, even though he knew that when they were both adults, Duo would be taller than he was. Being there in Brazil again, before his world had come to an end, that was everything he could want in that moment. There is a scent to things when the sun warms them, some kind of oxidation that is hard to describe. The stick of petroleum based fuels being burned weighed down the air, but coconut, spiced food, human habitation, all of it lifted the air in the Brazilian no man’s land they’d found their nest in. “I will always tell you what I know. You trust me, right?”

Duo wiggled rolling over to look at Heero. 

Heero could see it in his face, that Duo had already realized the size difference, that it was different then when they’d gone to bed six hours before. Duo’s fingers went to the new scar on Heero’s face, left cheek, below his eye. He’d forgotten all about it, but when Duo’s fingers touched it, he remembered the day he’d gotten it, the bullet that grazed him and knocked him from the wall. They were only hours from when he’d gotten it, but it was nearly half a decade healed for him now. Duo licked his pink lips, those violet eyes fully awake and focused now. “Talk.”

“One more moment, just being here with you, please?” Heero tried to smile, arms not holding Duo too tight, easy so as not to spook him.   
The thought process was so transparent to Heero and that Duo even considered giving him what he asked for was a great gift. 

“Ima feelin a bit jumpy now, so tell me what’s goin’ on. Why’re you older now? That’s what it is, isn’t it? You’re older. Time travel. Something went wrong... like today, and you came back to prevent it. Do you die?”

“No,” Heero said, not wanting to pull him closer or pull away, for fear that this distance trying to be born between them would come to fruition. 

“Do I did?”

“No.”

“But it’s time travel?”

“In a way.” 

“GOD DAMN IT! Talk!”

The back of Heero’s head tightened, pressure rising, and he thought he understood what a neutron star felt like, crushing and spinning to fast. “I’m going to tell you everything, but I’m a little afraid. I don’t want to lose you. Please, Duo, don’t leave me. I love you more than I can express.”

“Holy shit,” Duo said, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to relax. “I think that’s the first time you’ve said you love me, like in words.” 

“I’m very sorry I didn’t do it sooner, Duo.” 

Duo ran his hand over Heero’s much shorter hair. “You’re really different. What happened to the Heero who went to bed with me?”

“I am him,” Heero said, feeling badly because he knew what it felt like to find one’s lover wasn’t the lover one remembered. “In three hours, thirty-three minutes, world peacekeepers, well armed and intent on their mission, are going to break into our flat. We run. Part of their strategy is to separate us. It works. That’s where I got the scar you just touched. We are both arrested. The world court tries, you, me, Quatre, and Wufei for crimes against humanity. We are found guilty and sentenced to high school and rehabilitation. Wuf...”

“Wait!” Duo holds out his hand, his eyebrows arched in indignation. “I don’t get sent to fucking prison? They send me to school with a bunch o’fucking kids? Are they stupid?”  
“It was a political move, designed to placate all sides. Wufei is sent back to the Imperial Chinese. Quatre goes home to his people. I am sent to a nice family in Boston, but you were abducted.”

“I don’t remember any of this,” Duo said gently.

“You haven’t lived it. I will explain.”

“‘Kay. Who abducted me?”

“I never found out their identity, but I did find you. It took me four years.”

“That’s why you’re older?”

“Yes. I devoted all my energy to finding you. I am so sorry it took me so long.”

Duo’s hands cupped Heero’s face, worry putting his brows together. “Are you sure I’m not dead?”

“When we extracted you, you looked exactly the same as today. You had been in a cryogenic tube, your mind connected to a gigantic virtual reality.”

“That sounds... unusual,” Duo said and it was clear from his inflection that the word he really meant was unlikely.

“When you work up, by your time it had been six hundred years. You had technological capabilities that dwarfed what the world knew. I....” Heero closed his eyes, lifting his head into Duo’s gentle comforting touch. “I felt small next to the you that you became.”

“Did you kill me?”

“Never,” Heero said, eyes snapping open. “He did not fit in well into the world. The world was growing to fear him. I followed him into his world and asked for you back.”

Duo sat up, suddenly shuddered not unlike a dog shaking water off as he made this grotesque face. “That’s some shit, ‘Ro. I need a fuckin’ beer.” 

“You shouldn’t. You’re only 13.” 

Duo bounced out of the bed, wearing nothing but a growing scheme in violet eyes and a pirate’s smirk. He pointed an imperious finger at Heero. “I’m one of the best pilots of the world, and probably guilty of some bullshit crimes against humanity, Ima drink as much beer as ah fuckin’ want.” Duo spun on his heel, striding to their small refrigerator, which he had cobbled together from parts, including a weaponized ice maker, which he had been quite amused with at the time, “I’m fuckin’ fifteen.” He pulled out a beer, popped the top with the gundanium part he’d bolted to the side of the fridge and put down half the bottle. “They really coming through our door in like two hours fifteen?”

“Everything seems exactly as it was. From what I understand of the virtual reality system, it runs as close to the real world as possible. There is a more pressing concern though.” 

“More pressing than getting arrested and tried for crimes against humanity?”

“Yes. So the world system that developed around your mind has awoken and is rapidly building a spaceship that can traverse solar systems. They intend to leave Earth and never come back. We have three days to decide if we want to go with them, or if want to go back to Earth.”

Duo stood there, naked, which didn’t seem to bother him in the least, tongue worrying at the corner of his mouth, finger moving around the rim of the beer bottle. “So we’re not on Earth now and we’re in a really complex and beautiful virtual reality?”

“Yes, I guess,” Heero said, finding it a little hard to believe because he could feel the bed he sat on, had the memory of Duo’s heart beating against his arm, the scent of sunshine baking everything outside their little flat. It was just too real. Time travel seemed more likely, even though he knew that wasn’t logical.

Duo tilted his head, took another sip of the beer. 

Heero sat there on the bed, his stomach tightening up into the neutron star that had been his head. It was possible not to see things that were right in front of you, if you weren’t looking. He reviewed what he knew with reasonable accuracy about Duo, that there had been early nutritional deficiencies, early neglect that would lead to attachment disorders, and yet Duo was not what a person would project from that kind of deprivation. He was clever, exceptional with trajectories and vectors, good with people, at least on a manipulation level, and awkward and tender in private. This added up to a brain that Heero had never considered before and watching Duo work out the details of their world, just standing there sipping beer and thinking it through, Heero began to truly fear what such a mind would concoct in 600 years of unfettered creativity. 

Then Heero realized those violet eyes were watching him intensely, little finger tapping on the cool brown of the beer bottle. “You’re afraid of me. Why?”

“I,” Heero started, wanting to deny it, but he’d always promised there would be no lies. “Because you’re able to do things I can’t understand.”

“That’s always been true. I tried to use a balloon for a condom.”   
Heero’s eyes shifted to the side and keeping his face neutral took all the effort he had.

“Yeah, yeah, we both know that came out like shit,” Duo said, moving to the bed, and running a hand over Heero’s head. “I love you. I’m super sorry I’m just a copy of the Duo you loved, but I’m a real good copy. If it helps at all, we’re all just a copy of the person we were just a moment before whatever present.”

Heero sighed, looking up at Duo, again who looked like the small Duo he’d remembered from that morning, but was already not that Duo. “Well, it was worth a try. Will you cease to exist? Like just go back into being part of the older Duo?”

“What the shit are you talking about,” Duo asked. “I’m unique. I’m me. Are you saying you don’t want me? It was your own mental contamination that you brought into this world that make me look for things, but seriously, ‘Ro, I don’t want to be that boy who was in so much pain. Please don’t ask it of me, just accept me as I am?” Duo asked letting his body slowly age as he straddled Heero’s lap. He pressed the chill bottle to Heero’s face, to chase away the unrelenting Rio heat. “Ain’t it the nature of life that shit changes and unexpected shit happens? You don’t value yourself enough, Heero. If you’re 19, I’ll be 19. We’ll grow up together. We’ll explore the universe together and if you wanna go back to Earth, I’ll go with you. I love you.”

He felt so inferior, so lost to have such a beautiful and fae creature sitting on his lap, smiling adoringly at him. Duo had to be smiling at someone else because it couldn’t be him. His value was that he was stronger, more durable. He knew that he was neither of those things in comparison to this Duo, or the other 600 year old Duo. Maybe that’s how the world always went. Duo was always something more and that’s why he’d been drawn to him. 

“Do you want to see you through my eyes?” Duo asked, kissing Heero’s lips softly. “Let me know you how I see you.”

“No,” came across his lips, but he knew he didn’t mean it. The shift in perspective felt smooth, as if it had always been his perspective, but the light of it shown into the cracks left by the military training, the destruction of his childhood, being taught without question his only value was in winning the battle, but from Duo’s point-of-view he was the sun. He was strong and kind and making him happy was the greatest joy in the world. His blue eyes were so beautiful and the sound of his voice brought joy that Heero didn’t know how to measure. Everything Duo felt was so much more vivid and vibrant than his own feelings, but Duo adored him. 

The experience took almost no time, but once he was back in his own consciousness, he was physically shaking, the rules and order of his life broke down, everything that had held him together while he searched for Duo, all the negotiations with Relena for resources, even farther back all the war and trying to negotiate with the families of innocents that he’d killed, everything had been a negotiation, all ordered and sorted, but in that moment there was only his own vibrant spark of life. Duo’s arms went around him, holding him, rocking him, a hand soothing over his hair. “Heero, please, be okay with me, please, please stay with me. We’ll figure everything out!” 

Still shaking, Heero locked his arms around Duo, holding him close. “Yes.”

Kissing Heero’s shoulder, then tugging his hair with his lips, Duo’s violet eyes sparkled with mischief. “You found me, Heero. I wouldn’t have woken up with you. Something about me woke you up. We’re a matched set.”

Heero twisted a bit, so he could see Duo’s face. With one still trembling hand he pushed dark bangs back. “Yes.”


End file.
